This season of the Simplified Organization Audio Blog is excerpts from an hour-long live chat all about resting as a homeschool mom. Find the link below to access the replay in its entirety!

Transcript

So, start off by listing the things that you currently do for rest. What do you currently do when you feel like you need a break? Of those things that you do for rest which ones do you feel rested after doing? Because not everything that we do to take a break helps us feel better afterwards. So, if we don’t feel better afterwards, if we don’t feel rested and restored after doing it, it’s not a break. Maybe it’s stopping doing our work but it’s not rest. We have to be examining what we’re doing and whether or not it’s what we should be doing and perhaps there’s guilt involved because what we’re doing for rest isn’t restful so it doesn’t help so our anxiety and our stress is actually building instead of releasing. It just kind of builds and is a mess. We’re going to be taking a step back.

Let’s talk about the goal for rest. So, Erika says, “Everything I do to rest I do restful during I but I feel guilty afterwards.’ So, maybe after reading a book you do feel rested and maybe after reading a book you don’t. It can depend on the situation and what else is going on or the kind of book. There are multiple things going on pretty much all the time so that’s why we have to brain dump and really start following those connections and like, ‘what’s the difference between this time where I felt rested after reading a book or maybe even after watching a TV show and this time where it wasn’t?’ Sometimes you’re even too tired to read so we need to figure out the kind of rest that we need, the kind of tired that we are so that we know what to build more of into our life.

So, what’s the goal for resting? If we step back and look at the end – keep the end in mind – that will help us not feel guilty when we are legitimately resting, and it will help us recognize true rest from fake rest. So, the goal for resting is to be rested. This isn’t super deep. The goal of resting is peace and restoration/refreshment. If we go into rest as leisure and scholé (Peiper’s book, “The Basis of Culture” takes us on a journey on exploring leisure and its purpose) and it goes toward worship. And I think that is a good insight for us as we think about rest.

Of course, the Bible talks about rest as connected to the Sabbath a lot. And, the point of the Sabbath is worship. When we have a mind and a soul at peace we can be grateful, we can be attentive even to God, and attentive to what He is doing in our life right now instead of, maybe, what we’re trying to do in our life. We can be more open and receptive when our minds and our souls and our bodies are at peace. But when our bodies are tired and fatigued, when our mind is distracted, and when we haven’t been spending any time in God’s Word, with God’s people, worshiping then these are all blocks, blockage, obstacles to finding rest which is from God – real rest is from God – even if it comes after a novel, it’s a blessing that we can have and that is good for us because God rested on the seventh day not because He needed a break but because that is the end of work, that’s enjoying the work, that’s what He did. He didn’t go find entertainment he was taking enjoyment from His work and that was how He rested. He wasn’t doing work but He was enjoying the fruits of His work and that was rest, and so that’s why then there’s the Sabbath (it follows this model). God was modeling a pattern that He wanted us to follow: work, and then enjoy the work, enjoy the fruits of the work. It’s OK and good and right to not be go, go, go, work, work, work, productive mode all the time. That is not God’s will for us. It is God’s will for us to do our duty and part of our duty is to take a step back and be grateful and worshipful and enjoy the fruits of our work. That’s legitimate.

Access the whole replay:

God was modeling a pattern that He wanted us to follow: work, and then enjoy the work, enjoy the fruits of the work.

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Hi! I’m Mystie. At Simply Convivial I write about managing a full life as a mom: not only on productivity hacks, organization tools, and homeschool curriculum, but also on cheerful attitudes and necessary habits. Together, let’s get a handle on our roles, responsibilities, and mindsets so we can flourish where we are called to serve.